Chapter 2 :

Her fever didn't break the next day despite his best efforts. He tried cooling her by putting a wet towel on her forehead, he tried bringing the couch closer to the fire when she started shivering uncontrollably… Nothing. Haymitch wasn't a healer and he kept no medicine in the house except liquor – which he wasn't about to give her because he doubted that was the best idea. Even as far gone as he was, he still knew getting drunk wasn't the answer to everything, not for everyone at least.

By the time the storm finally cleared up, she was completely delirious. Her teeth were chattering and she kept calling for her father, her mother and, sometimes, for someone named Domi or Domitia whom he had concluded to be her sister. She was so pale the bruise on her cheek seemed even darker by contrast.

"Come on, sweetheart." he begged. He had been trying for the past half-hour to make her drink some soup to no avail. He was cradling her head in his hand and was trying to bring the bowl to her mouth with his other one but the hot liquid kept sliding on her lips and trickling down her jaw. It was a lost cause.

And if he didn't find a solution soon, she was going to die. That much was obvious.

She needed a help he couldn't give.

There was a doctor in town but he didn't trust him. The man would sooner turn to Cray than actually treat her… His best hope was the Seam. People there looked after each other, or at least that was how it had been when he was growing up… There was a healer there, he knew, a woman.

The snow had stopped falling. If he wanted to try, it was now or never. And yet, he dwelled on the decision… Could he take the risk ? It wasn't his life at stake – well, it could be his life at stake depending on what they would do to him for helping her but that wasn't the point. He couldn't afford to wait much longer, though. There would be no more reason to take any risk if he did because she would be dead and his next dilemma would be what to do with her corpse. Her breathing was labored, each breath sounded like a rasp… He slowly brushed aside the locks plastered to her clammy brow.

"I'm getting you help." he finally decided. "Don't die while I'm out, Princess."

He made sure the fireplace was well-stocked and that she was secured enough in her nest of blankets, so she wouldn't fall off the couch and stay warm, before rushing to the Seam as quickly as he could given the amount of snow. It was better once he was out of the victors' village, the streets were more frequently used, the snow had been piled up on the side and his progress was steadier.

He didn't know where the healer lived exactly but he knew Ripper would be at the Hob despite the weather and that she certainly would know. He hurried there and took directions from the woman, thankful for her lack of intrusive questions. That was what he liked about the Hob and the Seam, people seldom asked questions.

He found the house the old woman had indicated rather easily, there were potted plants on the other side of the window. He hammered on the door rather than knocked. It opened on none other than Everdeen which wasn't excellent news. Haymitch couldn't say he was a big fan of the man : nice enough chap but he obviously didn't like the victor much, he winced and turned his head away each time he saw Haymitch drinking at the Hob.

"What do you want?" Everdeen asked, not at all welcoming. Haymitch could hear a baby crying inside, he had probably just woken it up with all his hammering.

"I need your wife." No time for pleasantries. The man looked him up and down, sighed and stepped aside. Haymitch internally cringed, knowing the next part wouldn't sit well with the miner. "No, at my house. It's… urgent."

"She can look after you here or you can go in town and try the doctor." Everdeen growled.

Haymitch rubbed his eyes tiredly. He noticed his hands were shaking and he related the tremors to the distinct lack of alcohol in his body. He hadn't been that sober in years. It wasn't a pleasant experience, he could see why he had stopped.

"Look, it's not for me. My… friend is sick." The word felt strange on his tongue. When was the last time he had used it? The closest thing he had to a friend since his Games was Chaff and even that friendship had a few strings attached. It had to when they were mentoring tributes who would eventually end up killing each other. "She has a fever, I don't know what to do." He was at a loss. Everdeen looked unforgiving and not ready to compromise yet Haymitch couldn't let the girl die. It was an odd feeling but he knew he couldn't let her die. "I can pay. Whatever you want."

A woman appeared behind the miner, a tiny baby in her arms. She was very beautiful, blond hair and blue eyes… Merchant looks. He recalled her vaguely from his school days. "I will come."

"Thank you." he breathed out, not bothering to hide his relief.

"Ask Izzie to come here to watch Katniss on the way over." Everdeen instructed. "I will catch up with you at the victors' village."

The woman nodded and handed him the baby girl before gathering some herbs and vials in a basket. Finally, she wrapped herself in a thick wool shawl and closed the door behind her. "Lead the way."

Most of the walk was spent in an uncomfortable silence.

"Who is she? Your friend?" she asked when they reached the slope going up to the village.

Haymitch heard what she wouldn't say : I didn't know you had any. He didn't answer. Focusing on reaching the house through the mass of snow without breaking their neck was difficult enough, he didn't need to ponder complicated questions.

He was terrified of finding a corpse on his couch but the girl was still breathing – if her rasping wheezes could be called that.

"What did you do to that poor girl?" Everdeen's wife exclaimed as soon as she saw the bruise on her cheek. She pushed him aside to kneel next to her. He stumbled over a bottle of liquor and nearly split his head open on the coffee table. He didn't know what he was madder about… Nearly falling or the waste of perfectly good alcohol?

"I didn't do anything." he snapped defensively. "She fell."

"Down the stairs? Against a door?" The woman sounded bitter as she started examining the girl. "Save it, I've heard it a thousand times."

"I didn't hit her." he sneered.

She shot him a glance that was clearly disbelieving and he just knew there was no use arguing. She didn't trust him. And why would she? She probably remembered very clearly how feral he had become at some point during the Quell. Haymitch wasn't violent, not if he could help it, but during his Games? He had killed mercilessly and repeatedly.

That woman didn't know what it was like in the arena, how it changed people. All she saw when she looked at him was the boy with a knife that had killed so many other teenagers. It probably wasn't a stretch to think he had beaten down a nineteen years old girl.

"What's her name? I don't recognize her…" she asked, focusing on the shivering form under the blankets.

Joy of a small District, people more or less all knew each other.

"I'm not sure." he replied honestly.

This time it was a full on glare. "How can you not know? You picked her up, you beat her and God knows what else… And now what?"

He threw an empty bottle against the wall angrily. She flinched. Of course, she did. Sometimes, he wondered if they realized how much thinking of him as a monster actually made him act more and more like one. He was a monster. He knew that. But he didn't need the daily reminder. The nightmares were enough.

"I didn't do anything to her." he hissed. "She was like that when I found her. I tried to help, that's all. Now, can you heal her or not?"

She pursed her lips in annoyance and surveyed the stranger thoughtfully before taking her pulse. "Do you have a bed? Something other than the couch. With clean sheets."

"I have a guest room but… it's stuffy and probably dusty." he gritted through his teeth.

"Well, go clean that up." she ordered him, looking more closely at the bruise on her cheek. She palpated the skin until the girl moaned in pain. "And don't come back down until I call you." He hesitated a moment too long, she turned to him with a stern face. "You want to help her? She needs a bed with clean sheets. Go, now."

It was simple enough of a task but he was really reluctant to leave the girl out of his sight.

"Just…" He shook his head, unsure of how to finish that sentence. "Make sure she's okay."

Her eyes softened slightly but she was still wary of him, he could tell, so he left. The girl was probably safer in her care for now anyway.

He went up to the second bedroom – a room he had never really entered before – and contemplated his next dilemma. His life had sure gotten more complicated since that girl had broken into his house…

How did you clean a room? Sheets had been thrown on the furniture at some point for whatever reason… He was still pondering the problem when he heard the front door opening and closing and quiet chatter downstairs. He wasn't very surprised when Everdeen appeared on the bedroom threshold with a displeased look on his face.

"My wife said your friend is badly hurt. Tell me where she came from so I can call her family. She should be with them." the miner spat.

Loathing was written all over Everdeen's face. The man was probably dying to hit him in a sense of misplaced anger on behalf of a stranger.

Haymitch held absolutely no love for righteous people…

But righteous people had their flaws. They would move heaven and earth to find her family but they wouldn't report a helpless girl to the likes of Cray.

"You're a poacher." he stated flatly.

"You can try and blackmail me all you want, I'm not going to stand by while you beat up your girlfriend." Everdeen was clearly offended by the mere idea of someone trying to corrupt him.

"It must be exhausting to be so honorable." Sarcasm probably wasn't the smartest path but Haymitch was at his wits end. He was tired, he was desperate for a drink and he was done with being accused of beating up a – not so – helpless woman. If anything, she had assaulted him with a knife… "I'm not trying to blackmail you, I'm trying to explain that as a poacher you must know that, sometimes, laws aren't always… fair."

Everdeen frowned, clearly confused. "Just say what you have to say."

"Peacekeepers are looking for her." He hoped he wasn't making a mistake and Everdeen was a righteous man. "I don't know why. I don't even know her name. I don't think they're going to punish her with a mere whipping, if you catch my drift." The man studied him in silence and Haymitch damned his luck. Perhaps not so righteous after all. There was another option, though. "I have money and you have a baby. I can pay your wife to take care of her injuries and you to keep your mouth shut. It's a fair deal, you won't get anything if you report her."

"I am not going to report her. Who do you take me for?" Everdeen looked downright insulted.

"What do I know? I don't know you and I don't particularly want to." Haymitch sneered. "I just want to make sure she's safe. Now… Do you know how to clean a room?"

Everdeen rolled his eyes and opened the window wide. Wind blew inside, causing the dust to rise in puffs.

"Remind me not to ask you for anything ever again." Haymitch coughed.

In the end, opening the window wasn't such a bad idea. Between the two of them, they managed to get the room passably clean.

"You said you didn't know her…" Everdeen pointed out while they were making the bed. Or rather, while he was making the bed and the other man tried – and failed – to swipe the dust off the window. "Why are you helping her?"

He wished they would all stop asking that.

"I don't know." Truth wasn't often his first choice, but… He didn't have any other answer to that. "She's…" Gorgeous. Brave. Vulnerable. Strong. A survivor. "I couldn't let her die out there." Which wasn't, in any way, an explanation. "Could you?"

It was a stupid question, of course. Leaving her to her fate would probably have not even occurred to Everdeen.

"People are always telling me I'm too soft." the miner joked, closing the window carefully. "Soft isn't your problem."

"You certainly seem to have a lot of ideas about what I am or am not." he grumbled. He tucked the cover hastily under the bed, not particularly caring if it was the proper way to do it.

"We were friends with Maysilee."

It was uncanny how easily a simple name could summon a ghost. He shut his eyes tight but it wasn't enough to make her go away. She stayed there, in his mind, a knife in her hand and a fake defiant smile on her lips, her blond hair lashing against her back in the wind…

"Is that why you're doing it?" Everdeen insisted. "Because she reminds you of her?"

They were both blond, brave and too young to die, was that enough to draw a comparison? Was that the actual reason why he was risking so much for a stranger? It would be a good explanation, one he could probably accept without shame. But he knew, deep down, none of that was about Maysilee. It was about Mystery Girl and her pleading blue eyes.

It was about saving someone when he couldn't save any of the children they put in his care every year.

"I'm sorry about your friend." He had never offered any condolences to anyone for the three other District 12 tributes he had run against in the Games. To be honest, he avoided Maysilee's sister like the plague. He saw her, sometimes, at the market or in the street. He drank for days when that happened. Fortunately, she didn't go out much and he lived as a recluse, so they managed not to cross paths more than once or twice a year. He felt guilty for a lot of things but Maysilee… Maysilee, somehow, was the worst. "She was… a good person."

And she shouldn't have died. But what would be the point in bringing that up?

"It wasn't your fault." The voice came from the threshold, soft and sad. Everdeen's wife. "It didn't make it easier to accept, though."

"How is she?" he asked immediately, throwing the pillow carelessly on the bed. Who cared about pillowcases anyway?

"Not so good but it could be worse." The healer folded her arms and leaned against the doorframe. "What caused the bruise on her cheek? And don't say she fell because it's obviously a huge blow, so what did you hit her with?"

"So what, because I killed a bunch of people in an arena you think I go around beating women up?" he scowled.

He pushed past her and hurtled down the stairs, rushing to the living-room. The girl was where he had left her, her skin still damp with perspiration. She was breathing more easily though. He sat on the coffee table, watching her silently and occasionally telling her she was safe when she called for one of her parents.

The Everdeens came downstairs after a few minutes, the woman looked guilty but he waved away any apologies she tried to give him. There was only one thing he was interested in.

"She's not sick because of the cold, even if I can't imagine it helped." the healer explained. "When I checked her arms and her legs because…" she blushed and faltered a little in her speech. Haymitch deduced it was because she had been looking for more signs of abuse. "Well, she has bruises all over her body and her knee is sprained but there are a few cuts too. There's one on her back that is pretty deep and infected. The infection is causing the fever. I treated it and stitched it up but we have to make sure it doesn't progress further. The fever has to break or…"

"What can I do?" he asked. "There are medicines for that…"

"In the Capitol, maybe." she sighed. "Here we have to make-do. Even in town… We won't find anything stronger than my plants."

Everdeen offered to carry the girl upstairs, eyeing Haymitch's shaking hands dubiously, but he wanted to do it himself. She was his responsibility, not theirs.

He was even more careful than he had been the night before, gathering her in his arms like a doll ready to break, her head rolled limply on his shoulder. It was worse once she was safely in bed : the white sheets only enhanced her paleness.

"I have to go back home for my daughter." Everdeen's wife said, after making sure the girl was settled. She applied a wet cloth on her forehead. "I will come back in a few hours. Make sure the fever doesn't get worse."

"You can't drink and take care of her." Everdeen warned him once his wife had left the room. "If you fall asleep…"

"Don't you think I know that?" Haymitch snarled back, tired of their accusations. He could take care of her. God knew why he was thinking that because he couldn't even keep a plant alive but he knew he could. He felt linked to her somehow.

During the next few days, he counted time not in hours or by the succession of light and dark but by the constant coming and going of Everdeen and his wife. He didn't sleep much and he drank even less, just enough to keep the craving for alcohol at bay. Almost every minute was spent at the girl's side, making sure the fever wasn't getting worse or helping her drink some soup… The healer was pleased with the way the infection had died down but the girl had developed a bad cough – that was from the cold – and she was mostly delusional. Sometimes, she struggled against them when they got too close, begging for her life and her family's.

Haymitch wasn't afraid the Everdeens would report her anymore. They pitied her too much for that now. They were as far gone as he was.

How many days since the night she had crept to his fireplace? Four? Five, maybe. Enough for the snow to melt down a little so that the victors' village streets were more easily accessible, according to the healer. She said the fever was taking its toll on the girl's body but they couldn't do anything except waiting.

Waiting was killing him.

Haymitch hated waiting. He hated the feeling of her perpetually clammy hot skin under his fingers. He hated the frantic way her blue eyes searched the room in pure terror when she called for help. He hated the rasping sound she made each time she breathed…

He hated feeling scared every time he startled awake from a nightmare, sure she had died while he wasn't looking.

Feeling scared was one thing, but the time he awoke to complete silence – no labored wheezing – he felt utterly petrified. He sat up straight, barely noticing the pain in his neck, and didn't dare look at her for a few seconds.

He had failed.

He knew he had failed.

He rested his hand on hers, slowly. The skin wasn't hot but it wasn't cold either. It was warm. The fingers twitched.

Relief didn't even came close to describing what he felt when he saw her chest rising and falling regularly. He removed the wet cloth from her forehead, feeling the skin there tentatively. Like her hand, it was warm but not burning to the touch.

The fever had finally broken.

Her eyes opened just as he was brushing her hair off her face.

"Hello, Princess." His chest felt heavy with emotions he couldn't explain if he tried. "Welcome back."

She frowned a little but closed her eyes.

It was three hours and forty-five minutes before they opened again. He knew because he counted each and every minute. He helped her drink a glass of water, recalling how many times the healer had insisted on proper hydration – and not only for her but for him too because, apparently, he couldn't live on two glasses of liquor a day.

"What…" she asked tiredly, her voice rough with disuse.

"You were sick." He put the glass back on the bedside table and helped her to lie back down. She didn't seem to have any strength left. Problematic for a fugitive, he figured. "Told you I should have taken a look at that cut."

She blinked a few times, obviously trying to connect the dots. "You took care of me?"

"I could hardly throw you in the streets, sweetheart." He noticed the bruise on her cheek had dimmed to a shadow, which was good. No broken bones.

"You didn't have to do that." She winced when she tried to sit up only to fall down heavily on the bed. "I should leave."

"I don't think so." He nearly laughed at the mild glare she sent his way. "You're in no state to do anything but rest some more. You're perfectly safe here, for now."

"But… It's dangerous for you too and I don't want to impose…" She curled up on her side, though, sinking more deeply under the covers and, try as she might, she was unable to hide a yawn.

"You broke into my house, stole my shirt and then nearly died on my couch." he pointed out. "I think we're a little past that, now."

A small smile tugged at her lips but she was dozing off, her eyelids kept fluttering close.

"Sleep." he ordered unnecessarily. He got up, wincing a little at the pain in his neck and back. Sitting in a chair was no way to get a good night of sleep. "I will heat some soup for you." He didn't get any answer which made him smirk. "'Night, Princess."

"Effie." she mumbled, her blue eyes fixed on him, cloudy with exhaustion. "My name is Effie."

His smirk gave way to a happy grin – he would have denied it, though, because he was a grumpy man who certainly never grinned; he had a reputation to uphold. "Goodnight, Effie."

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